“This was locked around my spine,” I said, my voice hoarse and raw from the dry air. I pushed myself up, my muscles trembling, until I was sitting against the concrete block wall. “MNT-814. That’s your maintenance department. One of your people did this. ”
Vance’s face drained of color. The performative rage vanished, replaced by the same cold, quiet panic I had seen out in the plaza. He looked at the two security guards.
“Take the suit and wait at the loading dock,” Vance ordered them, keeping his eyes locked on me. “Both of you. Now. ”
The guards didn’t hesitate. They bundled the heavy yellow fur and the cracked fiberglass head into their arms and hurried down the corridor. When the heavy metal fire doors swung shut behind them, leaving us entirely alone, Vance reached into his tailored suit jacket.
He didn’t pull out his radio. He pulled out a slim, leather-bound checkbook.
“Stand up,” Vance said softly. The aggression was completely gone from his tone. He sounded like a man carefully negotiating with a bomb.
I used the wall to push myself to my feet. My legs were still unsteady. I kept the red lock tightly concealed inside my fist.
Vance walked over to a small metal podium attached to the wall, used by security to log delivery manifests. He set the checkbook down, clicked a silver pen, and pulled a blank, pre-printed incident report from the rack.
“Your vendor contract through the promotional agency pays you two hundred dollars for the weekend,” Vance said, not looking at me as he wrote quickly on the form. “I know what those agencies take. I know you are seeing barely half of that. ”
He finished writing, ripped a check from the book, and placed it on top of the incident report. He turned the clipboard around and pushed it toward me.
“Sign the report,” Vance said.
I looked down at the clipboard. The check was made out to cash in the amount of fifteen hundred dollars.
Below it, the incident report was already filled out in Vance’s neat, architectural handwriting. It stated that I had improperly secured the dorsal zipper of the suit, intentionally modifying the safety harness to sit incorrectly on my shoulders, which resulted in a mechanical jam. It stated that plaza security assisted me with removing the jammed zipper, and that I was terminating my shift early due to heat exhaustion.
It made no mention of the red padlock. It completely erased MNT-814.
“Fifteen hundred dollars,” Vance said quietly. “From my discretionary vendor budget. It clears instantly. You sign the paper acknowledging the zipper jam was your own fault, you hand me the red lock, and you walk out the back door. We never speak again. ”
I stared at the check. My rent was fourteen hundred dollars, and it was due in three days. My checking account held forty-two dollars. My graphic design firm had laid me off four months ago, and this humiliating, suffocating mascot gig was the only thing standing between me and eviction. I needed that money more than I needed oxygen.
“You’re terrified of them,” I realized, my voice barely above a whisper. I looked up from the clipboard to Vance’s face. “You know exactly who MNT-814 is. If this was just a prank, you’d fire them. But you’re trying to bury it. You’re paying me out of your own pocket so no one finds out what this employee did to me. ”
“You do not want to pull this thread,” Vance warned, his eyes narrowing, his voice dropping into a cold, flat threat. “This plaza operates on contracts you do not understand with people you do not want to meet. Take the money. Walk away. ”
I looked at the fifteen hundred dollars. I thought about the heat inside the suit. I thought about the feeling of my lungs pulling empty air while the sun beat down on the heavy canvas tarp. The person who locked me in that suit hadn’t cared if I lived or died, and Vance was trying to buy their innocence.
I stepped back from the podium. I didn't touch the pen.
“No,” I said.
Vance’s jaw tightened. He picked up the check, tore it precisely in half, and dropped the pieces into the nearby trash can.
“I am calling your agency,” Vance said, his voice hard, projecting absolute authority again. “I am reporting that you destroyed plaza property, assaulted a security officer, and violated your non-disclosure agreement. You are blacklisted from this property, and I will personally ensure your agency drops you from every venue in the county. You are done. ”
“Call them,” I said. I shoved the red lockout padlock deep into the front pocket of my jeans. I turned my back on him.
I pushed through the heavy metal fire doors and walked out onto the loading dock, stepping into the blinding glare of the Saturday afternoon sun. I was unemployed, broke, and my muscles ached with every step, but I could breathe. I felt the heavy steel shape of the lock resting against my thigh. I didn't know what kind of maintenance worker had the power to make the property director cover up a crime, but I knew exactly where I had to go to find out. I had to access the employee roster.